


Choosing Forever

by Siryn



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/F, Falling In Love, Love, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siryn/pseuds/Siryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby Stevenson never has a problem saying what's on her mind unless saying so will also break her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forever

You can do this.

You **can** do this.

You can do _this_.

\--------

"You find us a table and I'll brave the crowd and get something to eat, OK?" she says before she turns, so sure of my answer that it never occurs to her that I might have different ideas. Which, when you stop and look at our history, is either pretty funny or flat out crazy. Years into our friendship and I'm still not quite sure which it is either.

Come to think of it, it's also part of the problem at hand.

I glance once over my shoulder to make sure the crowd hasn't swallowed her whole (fat chance of that. Feisty doesn't even begin to describe her.) and then I plunge into my half of the madness. Find a table she says, I mutter. Like it's so easy. Apparently everyone in town had the same idea to hit the Rosebud for some ice-cream. In February. So much for being unique, huh?

I spot a busboy trying to politely push his way back towards the kitchen. He must be new since he's not just taking out anyone in his way. No one's really paying him any attention so I make a beeline for the table he's just bussed. To my left I see one of the senior football players has had the same idea and is heading for the same table. I smile to myself as I kick into high gear, twisting and turning around people in my effort to get to my table first.

"Hey, watch it!" someone calls out but I ignore them.

Get a table, she said. Get a table I will. A full minute before Football hits the table, I've already slid into the booth and propped my feet up on the opposite bench. "Too slow," I say with a cocky smile.

He laughs but his girlfriend shoots me a look that could quite possibly kill. Or it would if I really gave a damn what went on in her mind.

I turn my attention back to the crowd. There she is. Halfway through the line already. I'm impressed.

 

I'm also killing time. If I can just distract myself long enough, I won't have time to think about my decision. Today is the day I either find the courage to tell her or I just get over it. I've been over this a million times and yet I keep thinking one million and one (or two... or three...) will be the magic number. But I can't keep this up much longer. Something has to give and lately I've begun to fear that the something will be me. Melodramatic, I know, but that's how it feels as I choke down the words I can't manage to say for fear of losing something I don't even have.

"You never know. She might surprise you." I cling to those words even as I reject them out of hand. I've spent the last six months waiting for some sign that I'm not wasting my time, that the way I feel isn't some mistake and that if I could just grow up enough to talk to her, I'd find out that she felt the same way. But she's the same as always. We're friends and that's all we'll ever be.

Wishing won't change what will never be.

 

Wait. Does that count as a double-negative? Does this mean time one million and four really is the lucky number?

 

\--------

I see a flash of red out of the corner of my eye and there she is, barreling through the crowd as best she can laden down with a tray containing way more than a simple dish of ice-cream.

_You can...'t do this._

Today is the last day I pretend she'll ever love me the way I love her. Today is the day I smash what's left of my own heart and hope that I can find a way to put it back together without her noticing anything has changed. Because it has to, you know. It has to change. I can't go on mourning something that I never had.

"Head's up!" she calls out seconds before sliding into the booth across from me. I stare at the pile of food before me. "I know you said you wanted ice-cream, but I got to thinking. You're always hungry, and I know that if I got myself some fries, you'd just steal half of them anyway. So I got you a burger and we'll split it."

I glance at the lone milkshake on the tray.

"You see how crazy it is in here? They ran out of chocolate ice-cream making this. So I thought we'd share." She shrugs and digs into the pile of cheese fries on the plate in front of her.

I can't help but smile at the sight. She catches me looking at her and asks, "What? Do I have ketchup on my face or something?"

"Nah, you're good," I say before standing up. "I... it's awfully crowded in here. I'm gonna go outside and get some air," I murmur. This hurts too much and this is just a normal Friday night for us. Before she says anything, I push my way through the thinning crowd toward the door.

\--------

Outside the cold stings my face. Funny how being inside for just a few minutes made me forget how bitterly cold it was to begin with.

"Hey! Wait up," I hear her calling out after me. I keep walking because the closer she is to me, the more I see a million different things I will never have. Tomorrow I'll be okay, or at least better than I am today. But tonight I have to say goodbye to all these possibilities or I'll be forever stuck here in limbo. Wanting more from her but too afraid to ever try. Too afraid to chance losing my best friend over the possibility of something more. Relationships don't last but friendship can be forever. I'm choosing forever, even if it's not exactly the way I want it.

Her hand touches my shoulder and I flinch. "Abby! Are you alright?"

I take a deep breath. You can do this. _Forever_.

I lie. "I'm fine."

Her brown eyes catch mine and for a moment I can hear Mary Anne's voice in my head. "You never know, Abby. She might surprise you." Oh, I want that to be true.

Figure it out, I beg silently. Put the fragments of things I've said over the past year together and read between the lines. When have I ever been unable to articulate any given thought the moment it passes through my mind? Only when it's something that might hurt me past the point of immediate recovery. And the only thing I couldn't say to you is that I'm in love with you. Figure it out!

And then the moment fades away. "You forgot your milkshake."


	2. Coward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the words used to describe her, Kristy never thought coward would be one.

I can't get the look in her eyes out of my mind. Panicked and desperate for something I couldn't find a way to give. I don't like this feeling, like I'm trapped in my own skin, but I've felt like this since I dropped her off at home. Before then. When I took the coward's way out and looked away before she could tell what I was thinking, what I was feeling.

 

I couldn't tell her the truth. I couldn't. I can't. If I do I know exactly where this will lead. Things will turn sour and we'll end up avoiding each other and given the way we both feel now, and the way we both react to uncomfortable situations, it wouldn't surprise me if we declared war on one another. And I can't go through that. It was hard enough standing on the sidelines when Mary Anne and Logan finally went full blown nuclear. I can't go through that myself.

 

I like to think of myself as a lot of things, but until now I never thought I'd have to add wimp to the list, but in hiding from Abby, and myself, I'm definitely not as brave as I thought. But isn't this the smart thing to do? Save us the pain that is just waiting for us to make a move in that direction?

 

"You never know, Kristy. She might surprise you." Mary Anne was the one who told me how Abby felt. I'd begun to wonder, but I guess Mary Anne used her super powers to figure it out. Or maybe it was just one of those things everyone else notices before you do. I'm not sure and it doesn't really matter, because I'm not going to do anything about it.

I can't have my heart go through that kind of pain. I've seen what it can do, how it can break even the best people. The look on my mother's face the first year my father was gone is etched into my brain permanently. I can't willingly do that to myself. Because that's what will happen. We're just too much alike. This will never work.

It's easier to leave things the way they were. They've shifted a bit, but if we just keep going and pretend they haven't then things will be back to normal.

 

Won't they?

 

The snow is swirling around me as I run across our lawn towards hers and for a moment I'm blinded by the cold as much as the darkness. I know I should turn around, I should slow down enough to call or think this through or talk myself out of it, but I can't. Within seconds I'm standing underneath her window. This is such a bad idea but I can't stop myself. I let out an earsplitting whistle, the one I'm known for, and I wait.

 

The snow continues to fall around me but I can't feel anything beyond the pounding of my heart.

 

The door creaks open and Abby appears. She's rubbing her eyes and giving me the "have you gone completely round the bend?" look but she's here. I cross the yard in record time.

"What are you-?"

The distance between us disappears as I lean in and kiss her softly. It's exactly what I expect in that the world stops spinning and I'm completely and utterly lost until she touches my face and kisses me back.

"Happy Valentine's Day," I whisper.

\----------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured Kristy would need to be the one to make the jump.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [LuxKen27](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LuxKen27)'s 2011 Summer Challenge.
> 
> The cheerleader with the football star at the Rosebud is Cokie Mason and this is set somewhere during their HS years.


End file.
